With our hotels, motels, bed and breakfasts, camping facilities, RV parks and vacation rentals, you’ll find the best of lodging in Oregon . With accommodations to fit every taste and style, we’ll help you locate your ideal home away from home.

Oregon’s got hot high desert country to the east, balmy coast to the west, and mountains, rivers and forests in between. Not to mention many great towns on your must-see list. You’ve got a lot of ground to cover, and we are here to help you figure out how to get around.

Share

Ask Oregon Questions & Answers

Greetings from Southern Oregon! Our region is one of the state’s most prevalent for gold mining. Two of the four areas set aside on the state’s federal lands for recreational gold panning are located here:

Applegate Ranger District:
Located in southwestern Oregon, Rogue River National Forest (four fee sites where there is a charge of a dollar a day for panning in areas adjacent to campgrounds).
Applegate Ranger District
6941 Upper Applegate Road
Jacksonville, OR 97530
(541) 899-3800.

Additionally, in Oregon, areas below the vegetation line on navigable rivers and streams and ocean beaches belong to the state and are therefore open for recreational gold panning.

If you want more guidance, there is an outfitter in Southern Oregon that specializes in gold mining:

Another 20 miles south on Highway 62 is the town of Shady Cove, which has an Edgewater Inn. Medford, which has numerous accommodations is still another 20 miles down the road. All of those towns are on “Crater Lake Highway,” making them the most convenient.

Staying in Ashland would require you to drive on Interstate 5 about 15 miles from Medford. The drive between Ashland and the national park takes about two hours.

Nearly all Oregon State Park campgrounds welcome dogs. Pets must be confined by the owner, or on a leash not more than six (6) feet long, and kept under physical control at all times. The closest State Park campground to Florence would be Honeyman State Park.

Thanks for the question! As you can imagine there are a ton of great places to camp and fish in Oregon. The following is a list of my favorites based on region.

Coast: Gold Beach or Loon Lake near Reedsport. There are some really cool coastal campgrounds in both locations. Tugman State Park and Umpqua Lighthouse both offer yurt rentals on site and are close to fishing sites. Lobster Creek Campground is a small site with access to both river fishing on the Rogue and proximity to saltwater fishing.

November can be a glorious time to play golf in Oregon. You just have to be prepared for weather changing on you even during the course of your round. But then, that is what makes it a memorable adventure.

Most of the golf courses along the coast line and in and around the Portland area are open year-round. And down in the Medford area and Southern Oregon, there are some courses that remain open year-round. Only the Central Oregon market is closed due to the weather being cold with possible snow — it’s a destination in the high desert where the skiing is as famous as the golf experience.

Temperatures in December and January on the Oregon Coast are typically mild, ranging from low temperatures in the high 30s to high temperatures in the low 50s. Weather can vary greatly this time of year, so be prepared for warmer or colder conditions. You should also be prepared for rain. This is typically the wettest month on the Central Coast with precipitation in double digits (averaging over 11 inches in December). Come prepared and you will enjoy a season like no other. Huge crashing waves, wildlife sightings and maybe experiencing a famous Oregon Coast storm are all possibilities.

You will be arriving during the peak of winter whale watching season and the week of December 26-through January 1, a program called Whale Watching Spoken Here is conducted at over 25 of the coast’s best whale watching sites. Trained volunteers assist visitors in spotting migrating Gray Whales. The Whale Watch Center in Depoe Bay, less than a half hour south of Lincoln City, is one of the best spots for seeing whales year round. The seawall at Depoe Bay and the nearby wayside of Boiler Bay are great locations for watching crashing waves. The seawall at Depoe Bay has “spouting horns,” the coast’s answer to geysers, where when surf is up, water is forced through small channels in lava rock and shoots through small openings high into the air. A little further south is Devils Punchbowl at Otter Rock, another of the coast’s best spots for watching winter waves.

September is an excellent time to visit the Painted Hills, since the days will still be sunny but cooler and more comfortable for seeing the sites. The main site of the Painted Hills, one of 3 units in the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument is just outside of Mitchell, OR. This is where you’ll find the closest lodging as well as restaurants.

Thanks for the question! There are a couple of camping options near Eugene. I think the best one is Armitage County Park. It’s about equal distance to Hop Valley and Agrarian Ales. You could actually bike to both, there is a very wide shoulder or bike lanes. The campground is also conveniently located to Coburg Road which runs right into downtown Eugene and close to Interstate 5. The price is a little on the expensive side because the sites are really catered to RV camping. Some other campgrounds that are just a little further away from the city center are Schwarz Park in Cottage Grove on Dorena Lake, Sharps Creek in Cottage Grove and Richardson Park along the shores of Fern Ridge.

I hope this helps. There are more options if you look for sites near Fall Creek Reservoir, Blue River Reservoir and out towards the coast in the Whittaker Recreation Area (not the same Whittaker as the new Brewery District in Eugene).

Timing your visit to Crater Lake depends on which activities you most enjoy. Summer, obviously, is the most popular time to visit because the park is most accessible. In addition to viewing the lake from the rim or by boat in the caldera, there are opportunities for hiking, camping and learning about the lake’s history and unique ecology.

In wintertime, outdoor activities turn to cross-country skiing and snowshoeing (free, guided hikes are offered by volunteer rangers generally from November to April). Crater Lake officials always say winter is the park’s dominant season, considering that it is snow-shrouded most years from October to May.